The Clockwork Bat
by Maxwell Thorne
Summary: Steampunk Batman AU. Written more for my enjoyment than anything else so please be kind if you leave feedback.
1. Prolog

**Prolog **

"Aren't these conditions a bit… inhuman?" Thomas looked around at the cages. The people inside of them had little-to-no clothing and many writhed against the bars. "They are people after all."

"They are not. They are animals that have been infected by Satan himself."

"Then call in a priest! These conditions are deplorable!"

"Please Baron, we appreciate the private funding you provide, but leave the medicine to those who are qualified!"

"Of course Doctor Crane." Thomas looked sadly at the poor souls trapped in the asylum. He widened his eyes. Right at the end of the row was a boy no older than his own son. The boy wasn't like the others; he didn't pull at the bars or scream. Instead he sat, half naked, in the center of the cage, arranging pebbles. "What is that boy doing in here?"

Crane looked over his shoulder to where Thomas was pointing. "Ah yes, Edward. He has a very strange illness. He can't handle grime or imperfections. He just sits there cleaning his own cage."

"If he can't stand dirt than surly this is the worst place to put him Doctor."

"He is as mad as any of the others."

"He is a _boy_. He is the same age as Bruce!"

"And my own son Lord Wayne, surely you see why he can't interact with normal children like our own."

"He should be in an orphanage. Not a lunatic asylum!"

"BARON, perhaps it is time you leave." Crane was getting angry now, why should some nobleman tell him how to run his own madhouse?

Wayne ignored the doctor and walked straight up to the boy. "Hello there young man. Are you okay in there? "The boy looked up at Wayne through the bars. He coughed and began to speak in the softest, sweetest voice Thomas had ever heard.

"Would you like to hear a riddle?"

"Not this again!" Crane cried, "This boy has a fascination with double meanings and trickery through words, traits possessed by any demon worth his sulfur! If any boy holds a candle to the devil it's this one."

Thomas glared at the doctor. "I'd love to hear a riddle young man."

The boy gazed gleefully up at Thomas. "He who makes it, has no need of it. He who buys it, has no use for it. He who uses it can neither see nor feel it. What is it?"

Thomas looked down at the child as the child stared up hopefully. Thomas laughed. "I give up, what is it?"

The boy suddenly got very serious and looked the Baron in the eyes. "It's a coffin." Wayne's smile faded and he left the sanitarium. Some things shouldn't see the light of day.

That night, to get his mind off the horrible place he had spent the day Lord Wayne took his wife and son to the theater. As they left a man in very thin clothing approached them. "Are you the Baron Wayne?" The man asked.

"Yes…" Thomas gestured to Martha to take Bruce out of there. He had spent enough time with lunatics that day to recognize the way the man shook. The man looked pitifully at Thomas. "Who are you?"

"My name… Joseph… Joseph Chill." The man looked at Thomas. The stared at him with his little beady black eyes and whispered, "I'm sorry, I have to." Then the dagger went through Thomas' coat and into his chest. Martha ran to help her husband. "NO!" yelled Chill, and he pulled the dagger from Thomas and plunged it into Martha. He looked at poor Bruce, who had witnessed the whole thing. "I'm sorry kid, Scarecrow… to much interference. So much fear." With those last words Chill rammed the dagger into his own chest and fell atop the Waynes.

Bruce looked at the scene with horror for a half hour before the police arrived on the scene. A young police officer pulled Bruce aside and draped a blanket around his shoulders. "I know this doesn't mean much coming from a random Blue Bottle kid, but everything is going to be okay. You're plenty old to keep your estate and I'm going to make sure nothing happens to you. Got that kid? You just rely on old Left Tennant Gordan."


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Bruce pulled a loose cog from his pocket. Looking around he opened the face of the room's grandfather clock. He slid the cog into its place and the clock swung forward revealing a passage. He began the trek down holding his electric torch to his chest as he went. He finally walked into the flickering light of a large cave filled with machines. His butler was waiting by a chair.

"Alfred, I see you're already here."

"Of course Lord Wayne, how may I indulge your revenge driven psychosis today?"

"Very funny Alfred. Get my suit." Bruce began to take of the dinner jacket he had been wearing among the snobs that usually infested his social life. As Alfred approached, Bruce held out his arms. Alfred slipped a long, black leather trench coat onto the young Baron's shoulders. The Baron pulled the gloves and goggles out of the pocket of the coat, pulling them on more quickly than one would expect from someone raised in Noble life to move. At last, Bruce yanked on a leather cowl. Under it all he wore a simple black shirt and vest. Finally, he slipped into long boots and leather arm bracers. He was transformed.

"You look positively frightening sir," said Alfred.

"That wasn't funny the first time you said it," Bruce said, his voiced muffled by the cowl, "Bring me the belt."

"For the pants sir?"

"Don't you dare make me call it a utility belt Alfred!"

Alfred chuckled as he brought the belt and pouches to the Baron. Bruce pulled the belt around his waist and pulled out a sharp, triangular piece of metal. "Come now Bruce, that bat-shaped piece takes quite a while to make. Don't go throwing it at random muggers." Bruce slipped the bat'a'rang, as Alfred lovingly titled it, back into its pouch.

"I'm going Alfred."

"Good Day Lord."

Bruce grabbed a zip line and kicked off, down the tunnel to the city. He came out in an alley way. He saw some muggers. Small game. He launched down from the roof top he was perched on and began to fight.

A few blocks over, a group of men sat around a campfire, picking through the days loot. As they looked avariciously at their new possessions they talked of the latest urban legend. "I swear it, I've seen him."

"You're crazy," said the one of the man's companions.

"I'm telling you he's a gigantic bat that preys on the wicked."

"That's not what I heard," piped up a third, "I heard he's a vampire."

"Maybe he's a man looking for revenge!" said a fourth.

The fifth stared at them in disbelief. "Obviously none of you have dealt with The Bat. He's not a man, or a monster, or an animal. He's an automaton." The men then heard a shrieking cackle.

"Bloody hell, he's here!"

"Idiot, vampires don't laugh!"

"Bat's yell though, it helps them see." They heard the laughter again. This time however they saw a source. A man stepped out of the shadows carrying a long cane. He was dressed in green and stared at them with a crazed look in his eyes.

"An automaton?" The man howled, "A giant bat? What is wrong with you all?" The man was wearing a green double breasted coat that looked like it had been stolen out of the closet of a much more proper man. "Excuse my enjoyment of your idiocy." The man wiped his eye with his handkerchief. "I didn't think this city's low lives were this gullible."

"What kind of joker are you?"

The man began laughing even harder now. "Joker? No that's the other guy." The laughing man took off his spectacles and began to polish them. "Excuse me for not introducing myself. My name is Edward Nygma, pleased to make your acquaintance."

"What do you know of The Bat?"

"Riddle me this. Riddle me that. Who's afraid of the Clockwork Bat?" Nygma smiled at the group of criminals. "I know enough to say that he's just someone running around punching people to 'maintain order'. I support that you know? Order. Everything has its place and every question has an answer." The men continued to stare at the newcomer. "For example, what walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon and one leg at night?"

One of the better read of the group looked up. "A man, four legs as a baby, two legs as a man… wait, and shouldn't it be three legs at night?"

"It would be, but you got the answer wrong. The answer is you." With that Nygma pulled a sword out of his cane and cut off one of the man's legs. "See? It's night and you only have one leg?" He looked down at the man who was screaming and clutching the stump of his leg. "You're going to want to put a bandage over that before you bleed out. "

The other men looked in horror at the man in green. "Who are you and what do you want?"

"I, my dear friends, am The Riddler. I want your undying loyalty and the death of The Bat."

"Where did you come from?"

"My you ask a lot of questions. Don't worry. So do I. However, I only need two men."

The fight was getting tedious for Bruce. He pulled a gas mask from his belt and slipped it onto his face. He pulled out a pellet and threw it down, causing a puff of smoke. The decreased visibility gave Bruce an advantage over the criminals and they soon lay in a heap. He pulled out a grappling hook and shot it to the nearest roof. He knew that Constable Gordon and the police would be along this path shortly and pick up the criminals.

There was a yell from a couple blocks over. Bruce ran over, but what remained was a gruesome scene. Three men lay bloody on the ground. Painted in their blood on the alleyway wall was a symbol. It was a question mark. Most disturbing of all was the words written beneath.

Nice to meet you Batman.


	3. Chapter 2

There are two types of people that are never seen at a Wayne party, those devoid of noble blood, and Bruce Wayne. Interestingly, and by pure coincidence, both those types of people were at this one, though no one knew that the former had even arrived. The reason that the man went by unseen was that he fit in very well. He was well dressed, well versed in the speech of upper society, he was just generally charming. Of course, no one would think that if they saw his bloody question mark.

Bruce was there to think. He figured that there is no better place to think than a place where everyone is devoid of a mind of their own. That plan was not going well. He couldn't get a thought out of his head within all the noise and bustle. He finally gave up when he was approached by a man in a green suit that wished to talk to him. He nodded at the new comer to show he was listening.

"You're Thomas Wayne's son, aren't you?" The man asked.

"Yes, that would be how I inherited Wayne Manor and the surrounding estate."

"I'm sorry, I just wanted to make sure before I said anything. My name is Sean Shivell, I met your father when I was a boy. He was a very kind man."

"Yes, until he was murdered. Crime runs through our streets like the plague."

"Yes, I heard there'd been some violence tonight even. Rumor has it that Bat-figure struck again. Savagely beating a group of men and killing three."

"Killing three?"

"Yes, he signed his work to, said 'Hello, Batman.' At least, that's what I heard."

"You heard wrong."

"Oh? Never mind, before I depart would you like to hear a riddle?"

"Uh… I guess."

"You cannot see me, hear me, or touch me. I lie behind the stars and alter what is real, I am what you really fear. Close your eyes and I come near. What am I?"

"Cannot see, hear, or touch? Hm… no, no one fears air. The Dark."

"Correct. Amazing Mr. Wayne, You're almost as smart as I am! Well good day." At those words the stranger left, checking his fog-watch as he went. It was then that Bruce realized something very interesting. The cane that Shivell was carrying was shaped the same way as the bloody question mark from the alley way. Best not to leap to conclusions, he better check out weather the madhouse knew anything about the psychopath wandering the streets.

This time Wayne left through the front door and headed for the asylum. When he got there he was almost shut out by the madhouse keeper. "Crane! Let me in, you know that I have a right to be here more than anyone else."

"You said it Lord Wayne, not I," The keeper opened the door for Bruce, "And let's not stand on false remarks Bruce. Your father gave my father money to keep the loons in the coop. I owe you nothing."

"You owe me enough to tell me if there's been a breakout from your asylum."

"You could call it that, the reformers called it a 'humanitarian effort'."

"What?"

"I've had to release several patients that were deemed 'socially functional' because asylums have 'deplorable conditions'."

"Can you give me a list?" Wayne said softly.

"I know them off the top of my head, they were all my patients. There's… Jarvis Tetch, hatter that got mercury poisoning. Victor Fries, kept insisting he made some 'glorious invention'. Floyd Lawton. Edward Nygma, an obsession with brain easers and need for things to be orderly. There was this one guy who was even worse…"

"Wait no, Nygma. That's the one. Can I borrow his files."

"Anything for an old family friend. Quinzel, get Mr. Wayne the file marked E. Nygma." A young woman in the corner looked up at her name and rushed to get the file.

"Anything else?"

"No, that's perfect thank you. Wait, I'll take that list of people you let loose."

"Fine, anything to get you out of here."

As Wayne walked home he looked over the files. It appears he had been correct, Edward took to calling himself Sean Shivell in the presence of people he had just met. It was horrible that his father had known this boy. It was veen worse that someone like Nygma would enjoy Thomas Wayne's company.

Bruce got home, got changed, and went back to the scene of the murder. It had been scrubbed clean of the blood. He adjusted his cowl and heard a voice from behind him.

"Greetings Batman."

"Nygma"

"I prefer Riddler at the moment. The code names were the idea of my benefactor. However I quite enjoy it. Here, you're good at riddles try this one: When Is a Door Not a Door?"

"When it's ajar. Use harder riddles Nygma."

"Ohh, sorry no. the answer is 'When it's the sidewalk'!" And sure enough, the sidewalk beneath Wayne's feet opened up and Bruce fell into a large maze of catacombs."


End file.
